Self-Portrait 1917

This is Max Pechstein’s self-portrait, an etching on paper. He used a network of etched lines to build the image, which gives it a kind of raw, immediate feel, like he’s thinking aloud with the needle on the plate. I really respond to the way he uses lines to carve out the planes of his face. Look at the forehead, those etched lines aren’t just descriptive, they’re structural. They give you a sense of the bone beneath the skin, like a topographical map of his face. See that dark, emphatic line that defines the side of his nose? It’s so simple, so direct, but it carries so much weight. And the way he’s used hatching to create shadows, it’s almost like he’s sculpting the form with light and dark. Pechstein’s mark-making reminds me of Kirchner, but with a bit more restraint, a bit more classical grounding. There’s a tension here, between the expressive distortion and the underlying structure, that makes this self-portrait so compelling.